Although he wasn’t associated with any crimes, automated license plate readers used by the Pasadena Police Department logged the location of an activist’s SUV 14 times in the last year, according to documents provided through a public records act request.

Ed Washatka, the former president of the Pasadena chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, requested information about his vehicle to learn how broadly the surveillance technology is used in the city. The system indiscriminately collects vehicle locations and stores it for up to two years in a database, regardless of whether police believe a crime has been committed, according to police.

In Washatka’s case, the automated license plate readers photographed his vehicle parked near his home, on the street near City Hall and at the Pasadena Community Job Center, among other locations. Several of the scans occurred as he drove past a police cruiser, according to images provided in the request.

“It is disturbing that the Pasadena PD has created an enormous database of the movement of residents who have not stolen autos, are not suspects in an active investigation, and whose data is retained without specific law enforcement justification,” Washatka said in a statement.

The data shows at least six units scanned his vehicle 20 times between Oct. 15, 2016 and Aug. 19, 2017. Six of those scans did not tag the longitude and latitude of his vehicle, likely due to a malfunction with the GPS, according to Pasadena police Lt. Jason Clawson, department spokesman.

Clawson could not provide the number of plate readers used throughout the city, but he said there are “more than six.” Asked how many license plates have been scanned, he said the database includes every license plate that has passed by one of the vehicle-mounted readers at any point in the last two years. During each scan, the system automatically checks each license plate against a list of stolen or wanted vehicles.

To flag those vehicles, the reader is always on, always scanning, he said.

The Los Angeles Police and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s departments scan more than 3 million license plates per week. The LAPD uses fixed license plate readers in addition to the car-mounted technology.

The gathered information can be used for “active warrants, homeland security, electronic surveillance, suspect interdiction and stolen property,” according to Pasadena Police Department’s policy.

While the readers collect information indiscriminately, police only access the database for criminal investigations, Clawson said. An officer’s name and terminal number are logged by the system to prevent abuse. Audits are conducted to ensure it’s being used properly.

“If you’re running information, there has to be a reason for it,” he said.

Clawson said the license plate readers have located numerous stolen cars and alerted officers to vehicles associated with wanted criminals.

“We can track where the suspect’s vehicle was, or may be, from the license plate numbers,” he said. If police are searching for a suspect, they can check the database to see where they’ve scanned the suspect’s vehicle in the past.

Washatka called the idea of using the database for future crimes “baloney.”

The Pasadena Police Department should only save information if the license plate is a hit, he said. Information about residents inadvertently swept up in the scan should be purged immediately.

Under the current system, a resident’s license plate could stay in the database much longer than two years because they’ll eventually be scanned again — and again.

“Every day their license plate data is collected starts a new two-year clock,” he said. “That’s ridiculous and a real overreach of police surveillance and conduct.”

Jason Henry is a staff reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Pasadena Star-News. He covers Pasadena, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech and the City of Industry. Raised in Ohio, Jason began his career at a suburban daily near Cleveland before moving to California in 2013. He is a self-identified technophile, data nerd and a wannabe drone pilot. The 2011 graduate of Bowling Green State University likes to shock his city friends by sharing his hometown's population.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.